Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 96

RULES OF RITUAL INTERPRETATION 87
Agnihotra, the new and full moon sacrifices, the Soma sacrifice, and so forth. It might have been expected that there would have been made some effort to systematise these offerings, but no trace of any attempt to effect this end 1s seen in the Māmāmsā, which accepts the sacrifices from the sacrificial tradition. It is true that there is a certain degree of order of progress from the simpler to the more complex, but this order is not absolute, being broken by the necessity of performing the Naimittika offerings on the occurrence of the special occasions which evoke them. Nor is there any principle discernible in the rewards attainable by these offerings; they include such material things as wealth, usually in cattle, children, long life, rule, and, most frequently of all, heaven, which is held on what is known as the
Visvajit principle (IV, 3, 10-16), to be the reward promised 'in any case in which no specific boon is laid down.
The originating injunctions, however, do no more than excite in the mind of the hearer the desire to perform the action which they enjoin, generally in the form of a sacrifice ; it remains for other injunctions, those of applıcation, to denote the exact manner of procedure (itikartavyatā), by specifying the numerous subsidiary actions requisite, and the materials and other necessaries for the performance. The discrimination between what is principal and what is subsidiary (sesa) occupies the greater part of the attention of the Mímāmsā, and it stands in a close relation to the motive for the performance of the various actions. Actions may be undertaken according to the Sūtra (IV. 1, 1 ff), followed by Sabarasvāmin, Prabhakara, and Kumārila, either for the sake of the agent (puruşārtha), or for the sake of the offering (kratvarthn), while Pärthasarathi adds a third class of those which are neither for the one purpose or the other, giving as an instance the Agnyādhāna, or piling of the sacred fire. This innovation seems to be without warrant; the original distinction corresponds roughly to that between principal and subordinate actions ; the new and full moon offerings serve to benefit man by pibducing a due reward, while the fore-offerings, which form part of them, are merely subsidiary to the sacrifice; materials normally are subsidiary to the sacrifice,